Cap on antibiotic use in milk, egg & animal food
If the antibiotics don’t work on you falling ill, blame it on milk, eggs, chicken and other food stuff of animal origin. The Government has woken up only now to the menace of growing anti-antibiotic resistance in human beings because of all these products.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) early this week issued a draft gazette notification fixing tolerance limit of antibiotics and pharmacologically active substances in food stuff of the animal origin, inviting comments from the stakeholders within 30 days.
How soon FSSAI is able to enforce this notification is anybody’s guess as it does not have the staff to actually put the limits into practice to save us from the antibiotic resistance phenomenon rising every day.
It acted swiftly on the alarm bells rung by the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on how the global fast-food chains like McDonald’s and KFC care hoots to the antibiotic misuse in the Chicken they use even while they have complied with eliminating the antibiotics in the countries like US, Russia, the Europe, Australia and even Brazil.
The CSE did not ask for banning the use of antibiotics, but a stop to their misuse and this is exactly FSSAI is now trying to enforce by capping the maximum level of drugs that can be used for growth promotion of the animals, chickens and fish.
An official of the Health Ministry, under which FSSAI operates, explained that antibiotics and pharmacologically active substances are required for disease control while their residue may appear in milk and food from animals unless controlled and their consumption by humans may develop antibiotic resistance much faster than the pace of new drug developments.
Noting that internationally use of antibiotics and pharmacologically active substances in food stuff of animal origin, including fish and fisheries products, is prohibited, the gazette notification says: “There is ample evidence of development of antibiotic resistance in human pathogen, if these substances continue to come through food.
The FSSAI decided to act on the CSE report that highlighted how chickens are given antibiotic-laced feed to speed up their growth so that they produce meat in a shorter number of days, ready for slaughter in a fewer number of days. The CSE reported rampant misuse of the antiboitics in large quantity in both chicken and fish farming that has brought the life-threatening problem of antibiotic resistance among humans.
An official said the levels of antibiotic resistance in India has already risen to life-threatening levels in case of patients affected by tuberculosis and urinary.